What are the quintessential tools of the writer's trade? Why, a pen and ink, of course. Now, what modern writer in this day and age uses pen and ink? None. We all use keyboards and screens.
Where's the romance? The tradition? The glory?

It's all held in that unassuming marvel of molluscan engineering, the squid. The squid's pen is his internalized shell, the proteinaceous spear against which his muscles move. The squid's ink is his chemical defense, to be released in a blinding cloud or a deceptive pseudomorph.

Thus the squid is a more romantic, a more traditional, and a more glorious specimen of the writer than is your humble correspondent, who labors ingloriously on her computer.

Thanks to the new literary magazine North Cost Squid for reminding me of this fact.